Could SCOTUS health care decision cost Obama re-election?

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would argue that conservative Chief Justice Roberts joined with liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court to support “Obamacare” for one reason and one reason alone: to cost President Obama re-election in November. Instead, let me just say this. A victory for Obama today could make winning in November a whole lot tougher.

According to a national poll conducted by the Economist Wednesday, just 10 percent of Americans surveyed believed the Court would come down as it did, with a full endorsement of the Obama administration’s radical health care law. This perspective cut across party lines, with just 15 percent of “Democratic loyalists” had confidence he would prevail as he did today.

Specifically, the Court held that Congress was acting in accordance with its Constitutional powers when it mandated that nearly all Americans carry insurance or face the wrath of penalties.
Within mere minutes of learning that not just portions of the bill would survive, but instead the whole thing, Facebook and other social media sites were inundated with strong responses. A government powerful enough to require us to make certain health decisions is a government powerful enough to take away countless other freedoms.

The fact of the matter is that we had socialized health care long before the two-year-old legislation at the core of the case was ever signed into law. As I previously concluded in a column after touring hospitals and speaking with patients and doctors in several other countries, including Canada, we have just disguised it as a free market system.

Government mandates have long hindered competition here, denied the ability of too many health care consumers to make logical cost-based decisions about the care they purchase, and most troubling, hindered the ability of innovative doctors and medical facilities to compete with the nation’s massive insurance and health care industries.

All of this aside, the majority of voters wanted the law, or at least portions of it, thrown out. According to a Rasmussen survey, also conducted this week, 54 percent of Americans wanted it tossed. The most common reasons given: “the will hurt the quality of care, drive up costs and increase the federal deficit. Most voters also don’t like the government ordering people to buy health insurance and don’t think the Constitution permits that anyway.” When asked two years ago, voters were 10 percent more likely to support the law.

Regardless of what comes next, this latest development will satisfy few and worry many when it comes to concerns about future health care quality, access and cost. In many ways, the debate has just begun. Pollsters now scurry to gauge public opinion on this outcome that few expected. The decision may be a true gift to presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Yes, his “Romneycare” imposed similar mandates at the state level in his home state of Massachusetts years ago. But this is the federal government we are talking about.

In a November matchup that otherwise shows independent and Republican voters largely uninspired, outrage today may get these voters off the couch and to the polls on Election Day. Sadly, as we have learned too often in America, what is good for politics can horrifically impact our daily lives. Certainly, the Court’s decision today confirms this.

Jessica K. Peck, A Republican who serves as executive director of the Open Government Institute of Colorado and as a principal with Henley Public Affairs, is a member of the Denver Post’s Battleground Colorado panel.

“If I were a conspiracy theorist…” I might believe that Justice Roberts was compromised. The events of the last 4 years suggest that we, the American people, are being robbed by a sophisticated, yet covert, band of thieves. They have stolen the equity in our property, taken our retirement funds, killed our productivity, emboldened our enemies, weakend our defense, and set one man against another in the red vs. blue war. The trillions of dollars went somewhere. And, it wouldn’t shock me to find that Justice Roberts was party to the destruction and a partaker of the bounty. Some things just don’t add up.

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

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